Mighty Suburbia

As a replacement for race-based affirmative action, Texas started a program ten years ago that guaranteed admission to the University of Texas to the top ten percent of all high school classes. As a result, more kids from rural and inner city schools were admitted to UT Austin, the system's flagship campus. Hooray! But not everyone was thrilled by this:

For six years [] an odd coalition of lawmakers from the inner cities and rural towns had beaten back efforts to weaken the program....That coalition finally cracked this year under pressure from suburban factions in the Legislature and after heavy lobbying by university officials, who vowed to recruit minorities aggressively.

“The very people who make the most noise about this are the parents of kids who have had all the advantages in life,” he said. “They are the same people who don’t give a tinker’s damn about the people in the quote other schools unquote.”

But Senator Florence Shapiro, a Republican from Plano who sponsored the legislation in the Senate, said students from good suburban high schools had a legitimate complaint. Only class rank is taken into account, not extracurricular activities or other talents. Many students have been attending colleges out of state.

“The pressure for this bill,” Ms. Shapiro said, “really comes from the suburban counties where the youngsters do really well and many times are in the top 13 percent and cannot go to the university. They really go all over the country when they don’t have opportunity here.”

Never underestimate the power of suburban parents. They never give up and they never surrender.